The God Inside My Ear

I saw a screening of this movie at the New Orleans Horror Film Festival. I bring this up because I think the audience response is very relevant to this review. The narrative of this film is so incomprehensible that it legitimately seems like four college students were forced to combine their individual screenplays into a single film. There is an unbeleivable amount of set up for subplots that have absolutely no pay off. The main conflict isn't ever really established until the "climax". And the characters undergo no growth whatsoever. Not only is the narrative incoherent, but the tone is incredibly incosistent. Many parts of this movie play as if they were in a comedic satire of the horror genre, and other scenes are played as if we are meant to be take them seriously. These changes in tone literally happen within scenes and indicate a lack of vision on behalf the director and editor. What utimately drags this film down is the fact that by the halfway point, you still can't tell if what is happening is meant as an intentional spoof of the genre of psychological horror, or as a legitimate entry into it. Around the half way point of this film, after some truly teeth-gritting readings of dialogue, I decided that this movie was not meant to be taken seriously. It was clear that if the director intended to make a serious film, they would have used different takes. But this revelation only lead me to ask what the point was? If they intended to make a satire of the psychological thriller/horror genre, why was that not made clear earlier on? Why was this satire randomly inserted into scenes and non-existant elsewhere? Based on the audience reaction after the conlusion of the film, I think it's safe to say I'm not alone in my criticism. As the theater emptied you could hear people asking each other what the hell they had just watched. Because of the inconsistencies prevalent in the tone, it seemed like no one was in support of it as horror film or as a horror satire. Although I am an arduant supporter of independent film, I cannot recommend you see this film should it become available to the public.

I recently had the misfortune of seeing this movie and if you've seen the trailer, you've seen more than enough of it already. Please don't waste your time like I did, this movie is complete trash. You'll get more enjoyment from a Hallmark film.

In time, when first time Director/Writer Joe Badon, Cinematographer Dan Waghorne, Editor Joseph Estrade, and Lead Actress Linnea Gregg have all developed highly successful careers, we will look back a remember this film as the feat that propelled them. This film made for a mere $8000 looks more like it was made for half a million. The writing, though not for everyone, is aimed directly at long time surrealist cinephiles who have lived their lives avoiding the mainstream production circuit. The look of this film is on par with color classics such as Suspiria and creates a wonderland state of reality suspension. The editing pace of this film couldn't be more perfect and the creativity Joseph Estrade brought to the story through the use of rhythm and game changing technique is comparable to any film you will see this year at the Academy Awards. Linnea Gregg's performance brings you from end to end of the human experience; from shut down and lethargic to sadistic, to outright psychiatric, there is no shortage of range for this young actress. As I said before, not everyone will have the experience with films of this nature to fully grasp its importance in the long and beloved line of surrealist films from the likes of David Lynch, Luis Bunuel, and Darren Aronofsky. If you look at the early work of these directors, the period where studios werent throwing their money at these now famed directors, you will see that Joe Badon has a bright future in this industry and has found the team to accompany him to his Apex,

Intentionally hokey satire/surreal drama. another movie about taking drugs, made by people who have never done drugs. its worth a quck laugh and a cringe, but good luck getting past the halfway mark.

This movie is like throwing a bunch of budget horror movies in a blender, feeding it to the most boring person you know and watching them hurl it up for 97 minutes. Nothing but tropes from actual, original horror movies that are rehashed and somehow the makers of this film expect a build tension or an investment in the progression of the (nearly non-existent) plot.